He heard Beth’s sharp intake of breath, almost a sob.
Wicker removed his elbows from the counter and sat up straighter on the stool. “When did this happen?”
“She died just before I arrived, maybe two hours ago.” Carver put his arm around Beth. Her back and shoulders were trembling with each breath. “McGregor came into the hospital when I was there talking to Dr. Benedict.”
“So we’ve got another murderer.”
“McGregor considers it his murderer to catch. He doesn’t seem to think the link with the bombing is strong enough to involve the FBI.”
“McGregor’s wrong,” Wicker said. “Lapella was killed while guarding a victim of the clinic bomber.”
Beth slipped from beneath Carver’s arm, stood up, then went over to the window that looked out on the ocean. “I don’t care who catches him,” she said, “but I want the bastard caught.”
“I talked to Desoto when I was in Orlando,” Carver said. “He doesn’t have a line on the WASP either.” He glanced at Wicker. “Lieutenant Desoto’s an old friend. He mentioned the bureau had talked to him.”
“We know about him,” Wicker said. “And we know all about the history you two share.”
Carver felt a twinge of uneasiness. The positioning of Anderson to watch the cottage might not be nearly the extent of the bureau’s covert intrusion in his and Beth’s lives. Maybe Wicker was more like Hoover than he was saying.
There was noise out on the porch.
“Al coming back,” Beth said, turning away from the window.
Wicker downed some more ice water. “Not unless he’s wearing shoes with leather soles.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Carver said.
There were obvious footfalls on the plank porch then, and a solid knock on the door,
“Not Al,” Beth said, opening the door.
Al walked in.
“The way he was acting,” a male voice said, “I figured he had to be your dog.”
“He is,” Beth said, and stepped back to admit a tall man with angular features and a full head of gray hair. He was a nice-looking guy and had a little brush mustache and reminded Carver of an older Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
When he saw Wicker, he smiled. “Evening, Agent Wicker.”
Wicker returned the smile and slid down off his stool. “Mr. Duvalier and I have met,” he said to Carver.
“I’m Gil Duvalier,” the man said. From a pocket in his brown-and-cream-checked sport jacket he drew a white business card and handed it to Beth. “That’s sure a nice dog. He looks as if he has eyebrows.”
“Future Rock Fidelity,” Beth read.
“That’s an insurance company,” Wicker said. “It has nothing to do with popular music.” A beeper on his belt shrilled and Al trotted over to within ten feet of him and sat staring. Wicker opened his coat, pressed a button on the beeper, then tucked in his chin and squinted down so he could read the return phone number to call.
“Phone’s right behind you on the counter,” Beth said.
Wicker shook his head. “I’ll call from my car. I imagine the latest murder was finally brought to our attention.”
“Latest murder?” Duvalier repeated, looking confused.
“Officer Linda Lapella,” Beth said.
“Isn’t that the woman who was attacked at the hospital?”
“I’m afraid so,” Wicker said, detouring around the watchful Al and moving toward the door. “I think you’re going to have the same conversation with Mr. Duvalier I had this morning,” he said to Carver. He waved a hand as he went out. “Evening, all.”
Carver looked at Duvalier. “What conversation is that?”
“About Nate Posey,” Duvalier said. “My company’s making preliminary inquiries.”
“I can’t tell you much about him, other than that he tried to hire me to find out more about the clinic bombing. I refused the case, didn’t want to take the kid’s money for something I was going to do anyway.”
Duvalier looked interested.
“Maybe you can tell us more about Posey than we can tell you,” Beth said, saying what Carver was thinking.
“Two months ago,” Duvalier said, “Posey’s fiancee Wanda
Creighton made him the beneficiary of her hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.”
Carver remembered his conversation with Posey. “So he wasn’t kidding when he said he could afford to hire me.”
“He could hire you twenty times over,” Duvalier said. “The policy provides for double indemnity.”
Carver remembered the old movie of the same title, Fred MacMurray murdering Barbara Stanwyck’s husband and faking an accident, making it look as if the husband had fallen from the back of a moving train. The insurance company didn’t want to believe it was an accident but considered the possibility that the husband had committed suicide. Keys, the brilliant claims investigator played by Edward G. Robinson, had scoffed at the notion and asked his and MacMurray’s dense boss if he knew the actuarial odds of a man committing suicide by leaping from the back of a train.
Duvalier had seen the movie, too. He smiled at Carver and said, “What are the odds of a heavily insured woman being blown up in an abortion clinic bombing?”
Al stretched, yawned, and noticed the sack of Bow-Wow-WOW! leaning against the wall.
He ambled over to it and lifted a leg.
25
Carver left Beth at the cottage the next morning, in the care of Al and the stealthy and continual presence of Anderson.
He hadn’t checked for Anderson’s presence yet without finding the FBI agent on duty in or near his government-issue blue Dodge. Carver never revealed himself and talked to Anderson, though he was sure Wicker had informed him that Carver knew of his presence. But he made it a point to make sure Anderson saw him leave the cottage, so he’d know Beth was alone except for the questionable company of Al. Beth had come to believe more and more in Al’s abilities as a protector, while Carver had developed some doubts.
Beth was itching to leave the cottage and to become more involved in trying to prove or disprove Norton’s guilt and whether he’d acted alone in the clinic bombing. Duvalier’s revelation that Nate Posey was the beneficiary of Wanda Creighton’s life insurance policy had prompted Beth to voice the theory that Posey had been the bomber, using Norton as the fall guy and the Operation Alive demonstration as a cover and a possible motivator of Norton. Carver had differed with her, but he knew she might be right.
The answering machine in his office was aglow with the news that he had seven messages. He sat down at his desk and wondered at a world where callers could nail you with messages and obligations even if you didn’t happen to be home or in your office. Alexander Graham Bell might have decided not to invent the phone if he’d anticipated that. But then someone selling vacation time shares would surely have figured it out.
One of the messages was a sales pitch not for time shares but for municipal bonds to help repair damage from a recent hurricane on the Gulf Coast. One was a wrong number. Four were from McGregor, cursing at Carver and taunting him, and finally telling him to call him at police headquarters. Wicker must have talked to McGregor about easing up on Carver, and straightened him out as to who had jurisdiction in the Lapella murder. Carver decided not to return those calls. The last call was from Beth, telling Carver that Al was refusing to eat the Bow-Wow-WOW! and suggesting that on the way back to the cottage he stop and buy some cans of beef broth to pour over what the Bow-Wow-WOW! label called “delectable nuggets of pure deliciousness.”
Broth! Carver thought in disbelief. Did other dogs convince their owners to pour messy beef broth over dry dog food? He doubted it. What he should do is stop on his way back and buy a cat, see what Al made of that. He was finding it possible to work up a dislike of Al.
He was erasing his messages when he heard someone enter the anteroom. The office door was open, so he sat and waited for whoever it was to appear.
She peeked shyly around the doorjamb, gave a smile a try, then gave up on it.